Every month, as I've been redesigning Cyber Run, a futuristic table top RPG, I've also been writing an article based on subject I was redesigning. This month I was going to write about skill systems, but after overhauling our attribute system, I thought it might be more helpful to other game designers to talk about different approaches to designing a game system.

Top-down vs. Bottom-up Design

When I get a game idea, it begins from some detail of another game system that I want to change. After I get enough ideas, I start making a game. This approach is the Bottom-up design—trying to build something with a group of piecemeal ideas. One problem with this approach is linking each idea together in a logical way can sometimes be difficult. Bottom-up design does have its place, but mostly toward the end of the development cycle when I want to use the results of play testing.

Top-down design is required for designing a game's core mechanics. A game needs to have a foundation that the other game mechanics revolve around. Creating a core mechanic for a game is difficult; it not only determines the type of game I am creating, but also how it will be played. I might have an idea about how to make an existing game system better, but not an idea about how to make an entirely new system.

What helps me most in creating a new system is determining what I want to communicate to the players. In the case of Cyber Run it is morality, which as a result determined a list of character actions, which allowed me to build the entire core mechanic.

D&D has a morality system called alignment. I and probably a thousand other people have spent hours debating over the interpretation of an alignment. I disliked the alignment system, but it was central to the game, expressed in spells, abilities and class restrictions. White Wolf games have a humanity meter, which attempts to keep player characters from becoming psychopaths.

For Cyber Run, I didn't want to judge a character's actions as being good or evil. Instead I wanted the system to handle consequences to actions in a realistic way.

Realism vs. Numbers

D&D took real medieval society roles to create character classes, and assigned a character attribute for each class to create their core mechanic. The hit point, saving throw, and attack systems revolved around this core mechanic.

Some games don't need or want to reflect reality in anyway, but in RPGs I found that I become more absorbed in the games that do reflect some aspect of reality. I sometimes get too focused on this reflection in the details of a system and lose sight of the big picture. I find that it is better to limit reflecting reality in a game to the core mechanic, and then just concentrate on how the other game systems can work with the core.

D&D has a terrible, realistic representation of shields in their Armor Class system. In realistic shield-wielding combat, the shield is the primary defense against attacks, and in D&D it can be a simple +1 to AC compared to full plate armor that gives a +8. This mechanic can be addressed with house rules and the expanded rules that more recent editions provide, but in first edition D&D, reflecting realistic shield combat was not as important as reflecting realistic medieval societal roles.

Basic Rules vs. Detailed Rules

I like the idea of a game with few and simple rules, such as Guardians of the Order games or something like Ghost Echo, but the simple games I play are only fun for a inadequate amount of time due to their limited content and complexity. Heavily detailed games can be fun, eventually, but the initial cost of time for reading and learning one is a barrier that prevents many gamers from ever playing the game.

In addition, simpler game systems rely heavily on the ability of the game master. An experienced GM is free from the shackles of strict rules to craft a story, but an inexperienced GM can become frustrated, often ignoring some of the rules of the game systems, to simplify the entire game as a result, providing the players with a less desirable game experience.

Detailed game rules allow inexperienced GMs to perform better without making an experienced GM perform worse. Finding the balance between the two approaches can be tricky; I make the most basic rules possible for a play test and slowly add more rules after a few gaming sessions. What I found most important in creating a game is to not get burnt out on the design. Only if I maintain my passion for the project can it get finished. I hope this helps anyone struggling with their own game design.

Follow the Development of Cyber Run

http://cyberrun.grumpogames.com/

- See more at: http://grumpogames.com/blog/approaches-to-rpg-design/

Quote from: attevil;823426Every month, as I've been redesigning Cyber Run, a futuristic table top RPG, I've also been writing an article based on subject I was redesigning. This month I was going to write about skill systems, but after overhauling our attribute system, I thought it might be more helpful to other game designers to talk about different approaches to designing a game system.

Hope you do well with it.

Quote from: attevil;823426When I get a game idea, it begins from some detail of another game system that I want to change. After I get enough ideas, I start making a game. This approach is the Bottom-up design—trying to build something with a group of piecemeal ideas. One problem with this approach is linking each idea together in a logical way can sometimes be difficult. Bottom-up design does have its place, but mostly toward the end of the development cycle when I want to use the results of play testing.

Quote from: attevil;823426Detailed game rules allow inexperienced GMs to perform better without making an experienced GM perform worse. Finding the balance between the two approaches can be tricky; I make the most basic rules possible for a play test and slowly add more rules after a few gaming sessions. What I found most important in creating a game is to not get burnt out on the design. Only if I maintain my passion for the project can it get finished. I hope this helps anyone struggling with their own game design.

You are focusing too much on the wargame i.e. rules aspect of RPGs. The heart of any RPG is that the players interact with a setting as their characters with their actions adjudicated by a referee. The rules are just one of the tools used by the referee to adjudication the player's actions.

The RPGs that have good designs are that way because they effectively address everything important a referee needs to adjudicate actions in that setting or genre. And the rules are just a part of that and not even the most important part in running a great RPG campaign.

This is because players don't interact with rules they interact with elements of a setting; items, locations, the supernatural, the extraordinary, and the NPCs.  So of that can be described by rules, some of it can only be described in natural language. But regardless of specifics, the reader has to be able to learn from you how to adjudicate the characters interactions with all of this.

Neither a top-down or botton up approach works for designing a good RPG. You have to do both in iterative cycles. Start with top-down by designing a set of rules that cover what you think the players will be doing in the first few session then play. Take the results of those sessions and add, modify, or subtract rules and descriptions. Refrain from having a rule for everything, sometime a natural language description of how to handle something is all what needed.

It may be that due to personal preference you want more detailed rules, like adding hit location to combat, or specific techniques to a skill.  That OK, as it is reflects a detail that you want to focus on.

After every cycle look at the assembled packet and see if there anything you can do cut down on what the referee needs to learn. If you have a 3d6 system for combat, a 1d20 system for skills, and a 1d100 system for gadgets then probably most referee will find that overwhelming and unnecessary complex. On the other hand tho disparate systems is not automatically bad as it may better reflect the genre or setting you are trying to present.

And the setting or genre is what is king in the design of a RPG. In your case, the cyberpunk genre as reflected in your Cyber Run setting. Your game is not going to be interesting by the rule, your game will be interesting because it presents the who package effectively.


 QUOTE=attevil;823426]Detailed game rules allow inexperienced GMs to perform better without making an experienced GM perform worse.[/QUOTE]

This hobby and industry focuses on rules as a panacea way too much. To illustrate does anybody think by teaching somebody the raw rules of any RPG will allow a novice referee to effectively run a RPG campaign for a group of players.

Of course not because there is more to running a RPG Campaign than just the raw rules. RPGs are not wargames where multiple sides go at it via the rules. RPGs are about adventuring in imagined places doing interesting things. So get a novice referee you need to teach him or her to be adjudicate the actions of players interesting with a setting as their characters occurring over multiple sessions of play in a campaign.

Figure out what you would do if you were sitting beside a novice and coaching him through a Cyber Run campaign. Then organized that into a coherent piece of writing. What can be taught verbally can be written down. Finally incorporate a reference to all things Cyber Run and that your RPG gamebook.

Quote from: attevil;823426D&D has a morality system called alignment. I and probably a thousand other people have spent hours debating over the interpretation of an alignment. I disliked the alignment system, but it was central to the game, expressed in spells, abilities and class restrictions. White Wolf games have a humanity meter, which attempts to keep player characters from becoming psychopaths.

For Cyber Run, I didn't want to judge a character's actions as being good or evil. Instead I wanted the system to handle consequences to actions in a realistic way.

Realism vs. Numbers

D&D took real medieval society roles to create character classes, and assigned a character attribute for each class to create their core mechanic. The hit point, saving throw, and attack systems revolved around this core mechanic.
....

D&D has a terrible, realistic representation of shields in their Armor Class system. In realistic shield-wielding combat, the shield is the primary defense against attacks, and in D&D it can be a simple +1 to AC compared to full plate armor that gives a +8. This mechanic can be addressed with house rules and the expanded rules that more recent editions provide, but in first edition D&D, reflecting realistic shield combat was not as important as reflecting realistic medieval societal roles.

D&D started because Dave Welsey made a wargame called Braunstein. The difference from the wargames being played was that the players played individual characters and were given individual goals to achieve in the larger context of a confrontation between armies over the town of Braunstein. The resulting fluid, free form play proved to very popular in the Twin Cities of Minnesota.

Dave Arneson in turn adapted Welsey's Braunstein into his Blackmoor Campaign. Blackmoor started out as a free form miniature wargame campaign but one by one all the modern elements of RPGs were add. Arneson showed it Gygax, and the two of the worked together and created D&D.

D&D worked because of the experience it provided, the rules were part of that experience but the rules were not the key. The key was the whole notion of players playing characters in a imagined setting with each session building on what happening in the previous session.

The rules that were developed were in part designed and in part came about because Gygax and Arneson wrote down what they ruled when the players did their wacky things.

Arneson and Gygax started with the fantasy and man to man combat rule of chainmail and through successive iterations developed the initial D&D rules.

For example armor and shields. Chainmail was a miniature wargame, the purpose of combat is to quickly resolve combat between dozens of combantants. When man to man combat was introduced it was to handle close quarter fighting and duels between important characters on the battle field. To resolve a fight you cross-indexed the weapon you were using against the type of armor the target was wearing. If you scored a hit, the target was dead.  Hero type character could take four hits before dying, and super hero characters could take eight hits.

What was quick and easy for a miniature wargame proved to be less satisfying for a campaign focused on individual characters. So the number of hits a character could take was expanded to a 1d6 roll. Likely the hits a character suffered was changed to a 1d6 roll. So a Hero type character had 4d6 hit points and every time they took a hit they took 1d6 damage. Later this was refined in the light of character classes, fighters got more hit points, mages less, and different types of weapons.

Instead of weapon type, a character type or level was now being cross-indexed with armor.  It is not that D&D combat is unrealistic but rather it abstracts away the details and only focuses on skill (i.e. level) vs the type of armor being worn. This reflected in a broad way how medieval combat worked. The better armor you wore the less damage you took. The more experience warrior would do more damage in less time regardless of what armor was being worn.

I am pointing this out because a problem among many designers of RPGs is they don't know the history of the hobby well enough. There is nothing wrong in dislike in how D&D handles combat. Many gamers are happier when a combat system is written in more detail and accurately reflect how events occur in real life. What is wrong is the idea that original D&D was badly designed, something incoherent or slapped together. Note it was badly presented.

Now AD&D 1st edition is a different story. Bombarded by questions and comments along with the popularity of tournaments, Gygax wanted to clean up OD&D and get the game on a firm footing. The problem was that he was hip deep in running TSR at the time and so AD&D reflects a top-down method of design. Plus he incorporated many rules that were suggested to him for example the pummelling, grappling, and overbearing system. Or just fumbled the explanation, the combat initiative system.

AD&D is a great RPG, however in practice (and my own personal experience) what most people did was use the stuff in the rules (monster, classes, items, spells, etc) but ran it like basic D&D.

The other direction can be just as bad RPGs with unified system, like Fate can illustrate. In Fate everything is hammered into the 4dF rules (a d6 with +,+,0,0,-,- giving -4 to +4). The result is that is that +1 is a significant modifier and it is hard to give a lesser benefit or penalty. And when you master it, the dice rolling gets a little bland and trying to resolve getting the best price feel the same as trying to whack an orc.

However the fact I learned Fate helped in my own campaigns and RPGs. It made me look at things different and help organize things better. For example I like the idea of aspects in Fate. So I can glad to have played and run it.

The takeaway here is to learn about the history of the hobby, and understandthat the various designers had specific goals for their games. The key to your own Cyber Run is to pick and choose the elements that best reflects your conceptions of Cyperpunk and your Cyber Run setting. And your RPG will be a success or failure based on how interesting you make your presentation. The actual design of the rules will only be a part of this.

Quote from: estar;823437And your RPG will be a success or failure based on how interesting you make your presentation. The actual design of the rules will only be a part of this.

I agree, I see how a game is presented as what hooks a new player, while the rules would be what holds the players, keeps them playing the game.

I certainly agree, that back in the war game days, when a character only has a few hit points that a shield in the AC system works, since everything is so simplified, but that is hardly an excuse for first, second and third editions barely revising the shield mechanics. In third edition only the tower shield was improved by giving a cover bonus.

I can agree also that rules are only apart of the game, despite my misgivings with shields, alignments and contrived restrictions, D&D in any edition is a great game. You are right the setting and the feel of the game was well done and that was what made the players return to the game.

It sounds like you're getting really hung up on details, without a real sense of what you want to accomplish. I see a loose collection of ideas, but no foundation to the system. I do love the name, though.

I'm by no means an authority on this, but you can see the few amateur dabbles I'm willing to share in my signature. I've made probably 5 stable, fun to play and internally consistent different RPGs now (and probably 5 others that crumbled under the weight of their own eccentricity) and in every case that it was successful I started by trying to structure something that I wanted to see accomplished, and couldn't find an example of it having been done.

For instance, in my Masters of the Universe game below - emulate the act of both playing with toys and reliving a half-hour episode of He-Man. I thought that would be pretty neat if I could pull that off. There are lots of RPGs with barbarians shooting laser pistols, so I didn't try to approach on that ground.

So, what can your game offer the cannon? These are rhetorical, but - why should we care? What is new and interesting about it? Is it simply a different, more coherent combination of things that are already serviced in RPGs? (In which case, why bother?) I say this while I also believe that the world always needs more new and creative RPGs from creative people...but it does not need more sameness.

As with writing a book, I suggest reading everything you can and playing as much as you can in the same genre of games to see if someone else has already cracked the nut you propose.

Then, come up with a mission, and choose the tools that will help you accomplish that. If it's a good idea - and at least a fairly original take, it will propel you.

Good luck!

//Panjumanju

Quote from: Panjumanju;823626It sounds like you're getting really hung up on details, without a real sense of what you want to accomplish. I see a loose collection of ideas, but no foundation to the system. I do love the name, though.

Thanks for checking it out, How did you like the Actions? Those have become the core mechanic the rest of the game revolves around.

Quote from: attevil;823636Thanks for checking it out, How did you like the Actions? Those have become the core mechanic the rest of the game revolves around.

Honestly, my eyes glaze over when I see a list of actions like that. As someone who usually runs games, I worry that when confronted with an obstacle my players would be staring at their character sheets wondering which action is the "right" one. That doesn't speak well to me.

You've got essentially 11 Statistics, which are too many for Statistics (and people who want to derive their character's actions naturally from the instinct of it) and too few for Skills (and people who enjoy the crunchy bits in their RPG cereal). Everything else to your system seems to just be satellites for character customisation, which is fine - some entire systems are essentially based on those fiddly bits and how fiddly they are. Myself, I find them pretty annoying, and detracting from the overall game experience.

The problem with designing a roleplaying game in an established genre is that you not only have to make a good roleplaying game, you have to make a *better* roleplaying game than whatever people are already playing in that genre, and the only way you're going to take them away is through innovation.

Again, I'm sure no expert, so take this as a some-guy-on-the-Internet-said grain of salt. I like the name, I like the setting, and I see a lot of fuss and production - but I see nothing innovative, new or interesting here.

Good luck, though.

//Panjumanju

Quote from: Panjumanju;823647but I see nothing innovative, new or interesting here.

Thanks for taking a look at the site and letting me know what you think. The presentation does need some work, but the innovative part of the system is the actions. Each action represents a strategy, not a character stat or attribute.

A character decides which strategy they want to use for a given situation. Most characters are only good at a few strategies, for example, the bully that uses either Intimidation or Attack, or the beautiful model that usually uses Charm or Empathy.

Older systems would use these as skills, like an Intimidation or Charm skill. Fate rules would use these as approaches, like Forceful or Clever.

The problem with the older system styles is a limited list of character attributes that are then linked to a possible endless list of skills. Of course these both are always narrowed down, but doing so is not an innovative approach to designing a new RPG.

The problem with Fate approaches is that they are limited, game specific, and sometimes overlapping. A character hiding is using the sneaky or the careful approach?

Cyber Runs strategy system puts the focus, not on a specific skill or the way of doing an action, but on how the character wants to achieve their goal.

Quote from: attevil;823866Cyber Runs strategy system puts the focus, not on a specific skill or the way of doing an action, but on how the character wants to achieve their goal.

I'm with you in concept, but I don't see how what you have achieves that. Do you have any example characters?

//Panjumanju

Quote from: Panjumanju;823928I'm with you in concept, but I don't see how what you have achieves that. Do you have any example characters?

Here is an example character, players have character points which they buy traits and skills.

[/B]

Name: Nyx
Sex : Female


Allure
Sexy: A bonus +1 to Charm actions and a + 4 when seducing those attracted to the character's gender; a penalty of -2 if the target is not attracted to the character's gender.

Beauty
Attractive: A bonus + 2 to Charm actions.

Strength
Weak: Attacks with unarmed, melee, and thrown weapons do one less degree of damage, with a minimum degree of one.

Perception
Perceptive: A bonus +2 to Cheat actions at any game of chance.

[/B]

Street Rat
Gain a +4 bonus on Steal actions. Gain a +4 bonus to stealth Move actions.

[/B]
Suspicious
Automatically spend a vitality point to get a +5 bonus to defend against Cheat actions, although failing the check will cause an additional point loss in moral.

[/B]

Weapons
General Knowledge
This knowledge is a general training in weapons and explosives.


[/B]

Charm
Active: +3 / +6 if attracted to female
Defence: 0

Steal  
Active: +4
Defence: 0

Cheat
Active: 0 / +2 if game of chance
Defence: +5 automatic -1 vitality point

Move
+4 to Stealth

Attack
Active: -1 degree of damage for unarmed, melee, and thrown weapons.
Defence: 0

[/B]
Only the strategies and attributes that have modifiers need to be listed on a character sheet. Characters without an attribute listed or strategy is treated as if they are average. I added the full explanations of the traits here.

Attribute traits effect only a single strategy, Background traits are a "profession" that effect multiple strategies and Personality traits are used with vitality or moral points to give a one time bonus to a strategy.

Quote from: estar;823437The rules that were developed were in part designed and in part came about because Gygax and Arneson wrote down what they ruled when the players did their wacky things.

Arneson and Gygax started with the fantasy and man to man combat rule of chainmail and through successive iterations developed the initial D&D rules.

For example armor and shields. Chainmail was a miniature wargame, the purpose of combat is to quickly resolve combat between dozens of combantants. When man to man combat was introduced it was to handle close quarter fighting and duels between important characters on the battle field. To resolve a fight you cross-indexed the weapon you were using against the type of armor the target was wearing. If you scored a hit, the target was dead.  Hero type character could take four hits before dying, and super hero characters could take eight hits.

What was quick and easy for a miniature wargame proved to be less satisfying for a campaign focused on individual characters. So the number of hits a character could take was expanded to a 1d6 roll. Likely the hits a character suffered was changed to a 1d6 roll. So a Hero type character had 4d6 hit points and every time they took a hit they took 1d6 damage. Later this was refined in the light of character classes, fighters got more hit points, mages less, and different types of weapons.

This is the lesson I also took from the early history of D&D. Rules were added or changed in order to address some issue that came up in play, and if they didn't work then they were jettisoned. Iterative development with a working game that is constantly in play testing.

Unfortunately games can became resistant to change. For example, Fireball comes from Chainmail where it is the equivalent of a heavy catapult which makes perfect sense within that setting. When it morphed into D&D fireball had to be "nerfed", with the weird solution of having different ranges indoor (100ft) compared to the outdoor (100yds). This was insufficient so the "rebounds towards the sender" rules were added, which have caused endless controversy ever since.

(See http://deltasdnd.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/spells-through-ages-fireball.html)

Self evidently Fireballs are over-powered in D&D but once they're in there it's impossible to take them out as it becomes too much a part of the game.

For my own Homebrew I went back to a minimal set of rules that I thought worked and re-applied the iterative method. You would not believe how many rules I tried and threw out after one session. They looked great but didn't survive first contact with the enemy!

It's not an easy process, and you need patient play testers, but I honestly believe that the problem with almost all rule systems post-D&D is that they were written up as a system and only then play-tested, at which point it's too resistant to change. That, and rules bloat.

Quote from: JoeNuttall;824078It's not an easy process, and you need patient play testers, but I honestly believe that the problem with almost all rule systems post-D&D is that they were written up as a system and only then play-tested, at which point it's too resistant to change.

This is very true, even more so with video game development, the best lesson I've learned is find some fun game play and grow from there with play testing checking the development as you go along. The difference with paid game testers compared to your friends is the patients. It's hard enough to get players to read published rule books.

Quote from: attevil;824084This is very true, even more so with video game development, the best lesson I've learned is find some fun game play and grow from there with play testing checking the development as you go along.

You're so right - when I wrote Bounce for Nokia I got a playable demo done in two weeks then when people liked it I then developed the rest of the game with people playing the game as I went along. Nothing like an RPG but the same principles! I found what people liked and did more along those lines.